Kesha Opens Up About Rehab Stint: I Was 'Really Hurting My Body'

Kesha is opening up about her stay in rehab for an eating disorder in a candid new essay.

In a piece for Elle U.K., the 27-year-old explained that before she sought treatment four months ago, her body was “shutting down.”

“That first day in treatment was the scariest of my life. I worried about what people would think. I was here for an eating disorder—but I knew people would assume I was here for other things,” she wrote. “Sure, I’ve written songs about partying, but my dirty little secret is that I’m actually incredibly responsible. I take my music and career very seriously, and certainly didn’t land in this situation from partying. But I was cut off from the outside world and I imagined people making up stories at a time when what I really needed was support.”

In an effort to maintain a certain image, the singer said she was harming herself.

“I’ve always tried to be a crusader for loving yourself, but I’d been finding it harder and harder to do personally,” she explained. “I felt like part of my job was to be as skinny as possible, and to make that happen, I had been abusing my body. I just wasn’t giving it the energy it needed to keep me healthy and strong.”

“The music industry has set unrealistic expectations for what a body is supposed to look like, and I started becoming overly critical of my own body because of that,” the singer continued. “I felt like people were always lurking, trying to take pictures of me with the intention of putting them up online or printing them in magazines and making me look terrible. I became scared to go in public, or even use the internet. I may have been paranoid, but I also saw and heard enough hateful things to fuel that paranoia. I felt like a liar, telling people to love themselves as they are, while I was being hateful to myself and really hurting my body. I wanted to control things that weren’t in my power, but I was controlling the wrong things. I convinced myself that being sick, being skinny was part of my job. It felt safer somehow.”

As for her current state, the singer said she’s improving more and more with time.

“I’m not fully fixed—I am a person in progress—but I want to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. Even I need to be reminded that we are who we are,” she added. “And when I say that, I f--king mean it, now more than ever.”

-- Jesse Spero

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